lowtechmagazine

6 ms·

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by lowtechmagazine 2y ago
You expect me to deal with all the -5% waste sources in one article? Please explain me: what is the minimum share of total energy use that any activity should have before someone is allowed to dedicate any attention to it?
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by lowtechmagazine 2y ago
Author here. Good point, and I wanted to add that this is the first article in a series about communal living.
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by lowtechmagazine 4y ago
"Learning and practicing how to correctly pull the trigger is probably the single biggest improvement to accuracy a new shooter can make." Thanks, I will change that sentence.
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by lowtechmagazine 4y ago
Happy to see that someone actually read the whole article before making a comment.
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by lowtechmagazine 5y ago
Thanks for spotting the mistake. km2 should be m2. Source: https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:1ed44c19... page 17
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
None of the laptops was brought to landfill, I still have them at home, which is why I could photograph them all. The malfunctioning charger was not the only problem. The Apple laptop had also gotten extremely slow. Because I was not aware
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
Author here. That sentence will be deleted when the website regenerates, cause it doesn't seem to have the effect that I was aiming for. Thanks for pointing it out. That said, I was impressed by the man's repair qualities. I asked
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
Now that I have some more time, I actually do want to address your comment in more detail. 1. "Kris De Decker just really doesn't like plastic!" Correct. We need to get rid of plastic. Keep reading me if you want to know how.
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
That's because you're living in a rich country where energy is cheap and abundant. That 40% of the global population that needs to walk for miles to charge their phone for a hefty price, or light their shelter with torches, are ve
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
"If energy systems were installed that could heat and power these places without biofuel at all you'd be vastly better off. I did not see that point in there." What energy system you had in mind? Solar panels could provide el
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
A "central non-combustion power plant that doesn't emit air pollution or carbon"? What fuel is it running on?
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
Why would I repeat what is already written in the article?
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
They are not. For all the reasons mentioned in the article.
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
Depends on the stove. Tile stoves or masonry heaters can be +90% efficient. The same goes for inefficient stoves without a chimney, which is the majority of stoves in poor countries.
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
You seem not to realize that 40% of the global population IS ALREADY burning wood as their main source of household energy use. What is your alternative for them?
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
Maybe read the article before you comment? Here's the last two paragraphs: A thermoelectric heating system that runs on fossil fuels also compares favourably to a large cogeneration power plant, which captures the waste heat of its ele
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by lowtechmagazine 6y ago
You have completely misunderstood the article. Try reading it again with an open mind.
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
Agreed that it's a one-time step decrease, and that the progress continues. But, why 2020? The panels that have powered the server were bought between 2015 and 2019, and who knows how long they had been in storage before I bought them.
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
Calculating embodied energy based on costs is an option, but I have always learned that it's the last resort, as it has many problems, too. For example, How do you account for the fact that all production facilities for solar panels ha
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
No, it's not just Spain. I only looked at European power grids, but their carbon intensity is all calculated in the same way.
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
A cost analysis remains to be done. But it's not as bad as it seems: we save $600 per year on hosting services.
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
The obsolescence of life cycle analyses is a topic in itself, and the lack of accessible data is a problem for anyone who tries to investigate high-tech products. For the solar powered website article, it's the order of magnitude that
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
The carbon intensity of the national grid is calculated as follows: carbon emissions of burning coal and gas in power plants (say 600 g/kWh) + carbon emissions of wind turbines, solar panels and the like (0 g/kWh). Embodied energy
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
That's because you're not on the solar powered website. Hackernews is linking to the old site. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/01/how-sustainable-is...
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
It's a bit more complex than that. The life cycle analysis of high-tech products takes many years. That's why most studies seem to be outdated even right after they are just published. It's not just solar panels. Try looking
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by lowtechmagazine 7y ago
Author here. Good you mention this. I could have chosen a more elegant citation, but data on the embodied energy of PV modules is generally outdated and confusing. The number I chose is not especially high for panels produced since the 2000
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by lowtechmagazine 8y ago
My article shows that heating without electricity is cheaper and more efficient than heating with electricity. It also has references to back up these claims. What you write is simply untrue.
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by lowtechmagazine 8y ago
"The article doesn't show a single non-demo installation". It does. The Calorius windmill was commercially produced for about a decade, 40 of them were sold. Seventeen of these windmills were still operating in 2012. It'